Dr. Janet E. Smith

Janet E. Smith holds the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.  Her scholarly work is largely in the area of sexual ethics and bioethics. She is best known for her talk “Contraception: Why Not.”

She is the author of Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later, Right to Privacy; the editor of Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader and with Chris Kaczor coauthored Life Issues, Medical Choices, Questions and Answers for Catholics.

She is serving a third term as a consulter to the Pontifical Council on the Family and serves on two ecumenical commissions. She received an honorary doctorate in Christian Ethics from the Franciscan University of Steubenville, an honorary doctorate from Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary and the Veritas Award from the St. Thomas Aquinas Institute at Ave Maria University.